Article excerpt

Mission Viejo, California-based Comergence has created a proprietary anti-money-laundering (AML) certification process for the company's existing lender clients, along with reporting and analytics to track which of their residential mortgage loan originators (RMLOs) have complied with a new AML law that went into effect in the United States on Aug. 13.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) requires non-bank mortgage lenders and originators to implement an AML program and file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) for certain loan transactions. FinCEN established this AML program in accordance with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The guidelines relating to the AML requirement became effective on April 16, 2012, and the AML program's effective compliance date was Aug. 13, 2012.

"We estimate that only 7.4 percent of the country's mortgage originators are currently in compliance," said Greg Schroeder, president of Comergence. More than 90 percent of all licensed mortgage originators are registered on the Comergence system, and as of Sept. 26, only 7.4 percent of them have certified that they are in compliance with the AML program.

"What's alarming is that approximately half of the phone calls we receive from originators regarding this new requirement (indicate] that they don't even know what the AML law is. …